


What It Means To Know A Rogue

by BlueTigerTime



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Medievalstuck, Minor Character Death implied, i had to use a website im so so sorry, im just really bad at puns im so sorry, sweaty equius, terrible puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueTigerTime/pseuds/BlueTigerTime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius Zahhak is a knight, Nepeta Leijon is a rogue. Nepeta does illegal things, Equius gets dragged along, and shit hits the fan.<br/>A short story about illegal things, what it's like to have authority and abuse it, and why Nepeta Leijon is a terrible, terrible moirail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What It Means To Know A Rogue

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a giftexchange (some christmas thing, I don't remember it was a while ago). I grabbed at medievalstuck because I'd never done it before, and now here we are.

Rogues have a reputation for doing remarkably illegal things, and for a long time, it left you a bewildered, sweating mess trying to figure out why. None of the possible reasons conjured in your thinkpan made any logical sense, and a few were so… lewd… that you didn’t even want to _entertain_ the idea of logic. Even after you acquired a rogue for a moirail, you were left in the dark for far too long, considering the two of you jammed an almost unhealthy amount. Almost. You wouldn’t give those jams up for the _world._

_Though, it’s starting to look like your hand is going to be forced, and not pleasantly._

If there’s one thing you’ve learned over the years about being a knight, especially a part of the Empress’ guard, it’s that getting caught only happens if you act suspiciously in a world like yours. Specifically, in a kingdom like yours. 

The problem with this advice is that your name is Equius Zahhak, and you are the _definition_ of suspicious. Suspicious behavior is your middle name. Well, it’s not, but it’s a metaphor so it might as well be because you don’t even have a middle name. From every pore in your body come two things; sweat, and suspicious activity. Combined, it’s not a pretty picture (like your hoofbeast art). It paints a mural that involves you in jail, manacled in chains that you could break but wouldn’t because that would be incorrect, disrespectful, and just downright rude. If someone were to put you into a situation such as the above, you would be forced to let it happen; your code of honor is stronger than even you yourself. It has been for a while.

Which makes today, and right now, especially difficult, and for once, it’s not your fault. Entirely, anyways.

“c’mon, equius! it’s just a tiny little favor, this is not at pawll fair, you said you would!” She hisses to you now, leaned forward over the rail of the gate, almost nose-to-nose with you. If she wasn’t… well, Nepeta, you’d be busy putting her on the ground, but you’re pretty sure it’d be easier to just pull the gate out of the ground than to loosen the grip she’s got on it. For an oliveblood, your moirail has got a surprising amount of strength. And ability to manipulate. “i even told you how to do it! it would have been purrfect, it was just a little paper, what’s one matter to the kingdom? _damn_ it, equius!”

Fur- _For_ the record, the paper in question is guard schedules, very clearly delineating exactly where sometroll (if anytroll wanted to) could slip around the small gaps and do some significant damage financially, physically, politically…

And she asks _you_ why you don’t want to give it to her, and instead hiss “Language, Nepeta.” as she hisses again, claws pressed against your chest, eyes wide and her pupils large in the darkness, nearly glowing yellow. You sigh, shake your head again, grab her wrists and hold her in place as you attempt to come up with the words to get across your intense feelings of “No. How about no. Do the words ‘fudge no’ mean anything to you? NO.” when suddenly there is a hand on your good horn, one in your shirt, and just a general meowbeast troll in your arms what.

You open your mouth. ”Zahhak?” Your mouth closes, Nepeta’s claws dig into your uniform and into your skin, and you straighten your back. The footsteps are far enough away that you might have the chance to try and hide your moirail.

This is a good time to, once again, bring up you are in possession of droves of sweat.

You know this, and so, you make a decision. You have the paper, actually. The schedule is given to you every time it changes, after all; you’re an Imperially Condescensive knight, the most important troll for ten miles. It’s your job to keep your kingdom running at even the most basic level, and papers get lost all the time; you have more important things to be doing than searching for a simple schedule near the Imperial gates to the inner city. Much more important things to do.

\--

This thought is what makes it easier for you to sleep in your ‘coon, and what makes it easy for you to flinch naturally, normally, when you learn of the casualties later on. The thought that a simple schedule could not have done this damage shelters you from the reality that is, was, the tragedy that happened at a simple customs office; what is there in a customs office, besides documents, stamps, pens and pencils and stamps and packages and maybe a few things like that? How were you to know-

That’s it, though. How were you to know? You zone out at whatever the messenger troll says about what was taken, because you are busy wondering: _How were you to know?_ You couldn’t. Your moirail, obviously, has not told you everything, and you were a fool to give her enough ground as a schedule could give her. A schedule.

Good god, what have you done? How could a simple- How could this happen? A dozen highbloods, a dozen people that had all the authority in the world to walk into your chambers and strike you down where you lay and you would have not only let it happen, but begged it to happen-

All dead. All dead with a symbol scratched (almost like it was claws) into various body parts, a symbol you refuse to believe is even real. It’s too scandalous, too illegal, too-

Dear _god,_ what have you done?

After throwing the messenger out and locking the door, nearly ripping off the doorknob in your hands from the stress, you sit down, heavily. It feels like there are literal waves of sweat rolling down your skin, and you have never needed a towel more, or been so disgusted, or honestly, kinda wanted a highblood to exert the power and authority they had over you. They had it over you, and you deserved punishment.

But if you were to take punishment… what would that mean for the rogue who had actually done this? What would she need to take?

\--

This thought is what helps you find the courage to grab your uniform, some spare towels (no such thing as too many), your Imperial sword, and leave the inner city for the first time in your career as a knight, for the first time in a long while; since you called a rogue your moirail for the first time. This thought is what drives you to keep moving through alleyways and backstreets, wading through the outer city’s poorly-paved streets and down to where you knew your moirail liked to stay after a long hunt (and your hands are only shaking a little bit when you wonder if a dozen trolls dead is considered a long hunt amongst her kind).

That thought is the only sentence running in front of your eyes when you see her, and she launches herself at you to envelop you in the kind of hug that only an oliveblooded, rogue, huntress, meowbeast like your moirail could provide. She is, after all, one of the only trolls you can actually hug back. Not that many have tried.

That’s not important, actually. Oh dear. Your exquisite military uniform is essentially soaked. Dear. Fudge. You liked that uniform.

There is only a little wretching on your part when you discover what the fluid on said jacket and the walls is.

\--

_It is only two days later when you stand on the borders surrounding your former home and watch your livelihood go up into flames, high enough to brush the sky with a sort of majesty you wouldn’t have expected from such violence and chaos._

_Your name is Equius Zahhak, and you know what it means to know a rogue._

_And god, do you wish you didn’t._


End file.
